


retrograde motion

by reclamation



Category: Heavy Rain
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2019-09-30 18:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17228945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclamation/pseuds/reclamation
Summary: This is the real world.





	retrograde motion

**Author's Note:**

> Re-posting some old deleted works. Originally published in 2014 for [Trick or Treat 2014](archiveofourown.org/collections/trickortreat2014).
> 
> I haven't played Heavy Rain since 2012, so I may have fudged a few details here and there. I used an ambiguous blend of several possible endings, but I primarily tried to draw from 'A New Life' and 'Resignation.'

The day he resigns, Norman leaves ARI on the director’s desk, throws out every single vial of tripto in his apartment, and tries not to think about the offer to hold his position until he feels like he can return to the FBI.

He doesn’t plan to go back. He doesn’t deserve to.

Shaun Mars survived, because it was Ethan who rescued his son, against all odds, from the Origami Killer. Norman barely had the sense to save himself from  _himself_. His greatest accomplishment in the whole mess was letting Ethan escape Blake's interrogation and staying out of the way, because—even with ARI helping—he certainly didn't put all the puzzle pieces together.

Shaun lived, but Norman still feels guilty as sin.

 

 

 

Symptoms of triptocaine withdrawal include: anxiety, muscular aches, sweating, abdominal cramping, vertigo, nausea, and loss of consciousness. In severe cases—the life threatening ones—the eyes or nose may hemorrhage. Seizures. Death. Norman’s seen it all in a file before, a neat list marking out the progression of throwing off the addiction in clear black text.

The room spins.

His hands quake even as he clutches his own forearms for something to hold on to. The television murmurs in the background, words incoherent and wavering impossibly to his ears. In the corner, he’s laughing at himself.

As far as he knows, no one has bothered to research the adverse symptoms of abruptly stopping ARI usage. Norman could start the list: Hallucinations.

He falls.

There’s a sickening crunch against his chest, a sharp stab of pain, and then darkness.

 

 

 

Norman wakes with his face mashed into the carpet. Thin drops of blood rest in ugly, worrying smears below him. He brushes at his face quickly, checking the eyes and then his nose. His fingers come away clean. They venture lower, tentatively brushing where his chest throbs. Jagged glass shifts under his hands.

A forgotten, broken vial of tripto in his breast pocket.

If the liquid wasn’t crusted inextricably into the carpet, he wouldn’t be above lapping it up.

Norman tries to move into a sitting position, if only so he can properly assess the damage he's done to himself, but the idea is over before it even begins as his vision reels. He decides the cut can’t be that serious. It’s safer to lie on the floor rather than risk balancing on his own feet. At least he no longer sees a copy of himself standing in the corner, though white-static shapes that shouldn’t be there flicker at the edge of his vision. Tanks. He squeezes his eyes shut. It’s either that or scream. The world lurches again, beginning with his stomach.

In the background, the television is now on the evening news.

“—known as the Origami Killer. Thanks to the diligence of police and the FBI working together, Shaun Mars was safely recovered—”

Norman's answering laugh is muffled in the carpet.

“—the Mars family are no strangers to tragedy. Two years ago, Ethan and Grace lost a son—”

He closes his eyes.

 

 

 

Shaun dies in Norman's dreams. Every time. Sometimes he is forced to watch Ethan pull the pale, drawn boy out of the water. When that thin chest refuses to move again, his dreams conjure Ethan's face twisted in soul-consuming grief. And blame. He would look at Norman with hatred after such a failure. Even in the dream, Norman is aware that there can be no coming back from this. Shaun was— _is_ —the hinge that holds them.

 

 

 

When he opens his eyes, he’s staring at his own face. He’s smirking smugly. The other him is.

“Too bad you failed, Norman.”

Norman’s hand fumbles hard against his temple trying to take off the glasses he isn’t wearing. He is reasonably sure that he is awake.

“I wonder how Ethan’s taking it.”

“No, I didn’t get to the warehouse in time, but Ethan did.” Norman shakes his head roughly, denial too quick behind his teeth, panic undeterred by the fact that he knows logically this has to either be a nightmare or another hallucination. Still, he can’t stop himself from arguing. “Ethan saved Shaun. They're both okay.”

“Did he? Ethan, the hero. Shaun, the survivor. It’s a nice story,” the other him says and shrugs without sympathy.

“Stop,” he says, voice catching hoarsely. Guilt and panic, he finds, feel terribly similar. “It’s not a story, it’s what  _happened_!”

“How would you know? Can you even tell the difference between reality and a bedtime story a washed up junkie agent tells himself to feel better, Norman? Reality isn’t pretty.”

Norman lashes out with his fist but only manages to knock himself into a wall. The hallucination is gone like it was never there at all. Which it wasn’t, of course.

Some football game is playing in the background. The room is empty.

Norman tries to calm his heaving breaths. Every piece of clothing he wears is stuck to him by his own sweat, soaked through and chilled like a cold rain. Every muscle and bone hurts, but he pulls himself up with the help of the wall. His hands are still shaking when he buys a one way plane ticket. All he knows is that he  _needs_  to see the Shaun. And Ethan.

 

 

 

The flight is a red eye. Norman wrangles his wayward body into his seat. Even in the dark reflection of the window, he looks pale and lifeless. The flight attendant smiles at him politely.

“Nervous flyer, sir? Can I get you anything?”

He tries on a smile, though it feels wrong, and doesn’t correct her. He doesn’t tell her about the tanks that form an angry battalion at her feet.

“A drink. Whatever’s strongest.”

His hands trembling so badly that his first attempt to swallow ends up on his shirt.

 

 

 

Later, after a blur of airports and nearly constant dizziness, he’s at Ethan’s door. It’s too early in the morning to be visiting. The sun has only just risen. He shouldn’t even be here on this porch anyway. He has no badge as an explanation, no real reason to give. He smells like alcohol, sweat, and worse. There are no hallucinations—not the copy of himself and no tanks, but he can feel them like shadows, lurking and waiting for his guard to lower.

Norman knocks.

Shaun answers, opening the main door but leaving a heavy screen door in place. “Hello?”

He’s wearing blue pajamas with some sort superhero logo across the front. He’s there and whole and not waterlogged under some psychopath’s thumb. He’s standing in his own home, groggy and bewildered and  _alive_. Norman stares, knows he’s staring, and still can’t speak through his relief.

“Mister?” Shaun asks.

“Is your dad home?” Norman finally says.

Before Shaun can reply, Ethan appears behind him, protectively hovering in the doorway despite being clad only in a bathrobe. Perhaps it is Norman's hope more than truth, but he thinks his face softens slightly when he sees Jayden.

“Agent Jayden,” Ethan greets. He pauses, probably noticing the way Norman sways on his feet. “Are you sick?”

Ethan flips the remaining lock open. With a gesture he invites Norman in. Norman stumbles through the threshold, biting back whatever sound his throat is trying to make around the fact that he cannot breathe. It’s only when Ethan lays a hand at Norman’s elbow that Norman realizes how tenuous his grasp on staying upright is.

“Thank you,” he says. He blinks to clear his stinging eyes. Ethan doesn’t answer.

 

 

 

Ethan sends Shaun to the backyard to play before installing Norman at the picturesque breakfast table. Norman sits gratefully, collapsing into the seat. The kitchen is cozy, but more importantly, it affords the best view of the yard. It doesn’t take a psych degree to notice that both the son and the father are too careful about staying in each other’s line of sight. Shaun looks back often, grinning like there isn’t a lifetime worth of therapy in his future. Ethan smiles back, fond but weary.

“So what brings the FBI to our door?” Ethan asks, watching Norman carefully. Uncertain.

“I,” Norman starts, feeling the lack of his badge acutely. He hides his hands below the table so Ethan doesn’t notice how they twitch and tremble. He says, “No, it’s not official business.”

The silence stretches out long enough that Norman risks looking up again. The expression on Ethan’s face is unreadable, but brittle at the edges. Ethan looks away from Norman, gaze falling to his own hands. The last missing section of one of his fingers is still bandaged. Norman wonders how many pieces they lost to the Origami Killer.

When Ethan looks up again, he looks relieved. “I thought,” he pauses. “Maybe something bad had happened.”

Norman shakes his head wordlessly. Ethan looks good. Battered, but good. The desperation has left his eyes to be replaced by something else. It almost distracts Norman from his misery.

“If it’s not for work, why are you here?”

“I needed to come,” he admits, helplessly. “Nightmares.” He thinks it is close enough to the truth.

Ethan nods, more curious than sympathetic. “They must be pretty bad if you came out all this way, although I don’t know how we can help.”

Norman looks out the window. Shaun has stopped playing and now sits watching them talk. It is almost eerie how still the boy is. A shiver runs along his spine to settle into his hollow chest that isn’t completely explained by the lack of tripto.

“I had to see that Shaun was okay.”

Ethan’s confused look returns. “You know he is. You were there afterwards.”

This is exactly what Norman came for and yet it doesn’t alleviate the pressure in his brain. He isn’t sure what went wrong. It should banish the doubt to see Ethan and Shaun picking up the pieces of their lives, which is obvious at first glance around the house—it is obviously newly moved into, but feels like a home all the same. Clean dishes sit in the drying rack, childish drawings already proudly adorn the fridge.

Ethan seems to sense his discomfort. “Agent Jayden?”

“I quit the bureau,” he says.

Ethan nods, opens his mouth to speak, and closes it again. His brow furrows. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

After a few heavy seconds, Ethan smiles, bright and wide and Norman wants nothing more than to touch that smile to feel its warmth. He hopes that Ethan doesn’t notice his distraction.

Then he knows exactly what caused such a transformation in Ethan’s expression.

“Good morning,” says a voice from behind him.

He recognizes her from the warehouse. She was the reporter, Madison Paige, the one who had gone in after Ethan and brought him out safely. Or that’s what Blake had reported, couched around the insults—‘Better late than never for the FBI, huh?’

She kisses Ethan. They stay close, smiling with cheeks touching for a long beat. Then she turns to Norman, “You’re—”

“Norman Jayden,” he answers for her.

“What brings you here so early in the morning?”

He grimaces. Now that he's here amongst their lives, embarrassment burns licks through his chest. It is worse with both their gazes fixed on him. He has no place here; he must go. He prays that the worst of the vertigo has passed by this point. He says, “I was just leaving actually.”

“You don’t look so good. Sit a minute longer.” The order is followed by a glass of ice water set squarely in front of him. “Drink it, you’ll feel a little better.”

Norman does. And, to his surprise, she’s right. The coldness washes through him.

“Ethan, go get Shaun, would you? Since we have a guest, we may as well make breakfast. And by ‘we,’ I mean you two.”

"I'm fine," Norman protests, "Don't go through any trouble for me."

Ethan, never losing that smile, goes along with Madison's suggestion like Norman never spoke. Once Shaun is wrangled, which only takes a word, Ethan rustles around the kitchen, pulling out boxes and eggs. Madison takes over the seat across from Norman.

“How you been holding up?” she asks.

Norman flushes, unaccountably self-conscious where he wasn’t with Ethan. “I’m getting through it all right.”

She eyes him skeptically. Her face says,  _This is ‘all right?’_  He'd rather not think about how he looks in her eyes. The partial reflection in the plane was already more than he wanted.

“What are your nightmares about?” she asks instead, and Norman’s cheeks heat up more knowing she overheard that particular admission. He stammers. She waves him off. “I know a thing or two about nightmares. I’ve had them often enough. Bad ones. Talking can help.”

He can tell Ethan has started listening into the conversation by the way he angles his head towards to the table. Shaun chatters alongside him, enthusiastically asking to help with the pancakes.

Norman shifts in his seat. “I dream that it didn’t turn out so well.”

He doesn’t need to explain further, judging by the grimness that settles through her lips.

“Both?” she asks.

“Just Shaun.” He doesn’t know why he goes on, his mouth seems to get away from him. “Only it’s not dreaming exactly. It’s while I’m awake, too.”

“That explains your hurry to get here.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and sips from his cold glass. His head feels surprisingly clearer after each swallow.

“Do you have both your feet on the ground?” She bites her lip, thinking. “What I mean is, are you . . . steady?”

“I’m a bit turned around, but I’m working on it.”

“If it’s any consolation, I think that’s true for all of us.”

He smiles, somewhat amazed to find that it’s genuine.

Ethan sets down a plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon in front of both of them. Looking at the food makes Norman's stomach shift dangerously. “Breakfast, as ordered, sir and madame.”

Madison thanks him with another kiss, pressed to the corner of Ethan's mouth. Something twinges in Norman watching their easy affection. His fingers are nearly steady as he picks up his fork dutifully.

 

 

 

Less than an hour later, he finds himself on the porch again. Norman is aware that he is being ushered out as politely as he could hope for. He doesn’t even resent it.

“Good luck. Hope things get better for you,” Ethan says, offering his hand to Norman.

Norman murmurs his thanks for breakfast—and for bothering with him at all—and takes Ethan’s hand. Ethan’s skin beneath his is as as inviting as his kitchen, but Norman doesn’t let himself linger.

Madison surprises him with a hug and a kiss to his cheek. While she’s close, she whispers, “Keep those feet on the ground, Norman,” and punctuates the advice with a squeeze.

Shaun mutters out a quick, shy ‘goodbye.’ Norman thinks of the kid stuck under a grate on his way to drowning and can’t begrudge the lukewarm response to a stranger. He’s just glad the kid is breathing.

Madison nudges Shaun from behind, though it’s a soft suggestion. “Why not shake Mr. Jayden’s hand, Shaun?”

Norman can see the gears turning in Shaun’s head. Shaun obviously doesn’t want to, remembers that Ethan had, and resolves himself to live up to his dad’s example. He offers a tiny palm to Norman.

Norman shakes the offered hand, gently gently gently. Shaun’s grip is hesitant, but so undeniably  _real_  under his fingers.

“It was good to see you, Shaun,” he says, voice only a little ragged.

Norman takes stock of himself as the family goes back inside. This is a world without ARI, triptocaine, or the Origami Killer. The guilt is still present, but his hands only twitch intermittently now and his feet almost feel certain beneath him. The sun warms him through, and his head feels clearer than it has for days. It almost feels like the guilt and the shadows aren't waiting for him to close his eyes.


End file.
